a day is long or, the south american job
by v-volatile
Summary: They were both a little breathless, since Matecaña was a little over 1.3 miles above sea level. “You just like having an excuse to be near me,” Sophie said. “Maybe,” Nate replied, & avoided her gaze studiously. “Can you blame me? Look at yourself."


Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --

because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long

and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station

when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

-Pablo Neruda

***

They were in Lima for a job. This was one of those jobs that had Nate up all night imagining bodies strewn on the beach—their bodies, to be exact. They were dealing with a very particular group of drug smugglers that had kidnapped and killed an American, an aid worker doing a food security program in the cold Peruvian highlands. His mother had found Leverage on her own, somehow, after little luck with criminal justice, and told Nate a story so compelling he had barely spoken through the whole initial meeting.

The smugglers were based in Lima, so the team came to Lima, plans A through Z at the ready. It had been a terrifying flight down, the turbulence a bad omen. On the plane, Sophie had grasped Nate's hand with a death grip and he had gripped hers back, which was uncharacteristic (to say the least) for them at that time. But the plane stayed in the sky, thank God. Nate had closed his eyes at the worst of the turbulence and prayed to see his son, his atheism evaporating at full tilt, as his mind produced snatches of verse from the seminary days. He had prayed to see his son and closed his mouth tightly to avoid saying anything to Sophie he couldn't manage to live down later.

Now Sophie was seated at the edge of the couch, draped in a slinky black dress and barefoot, curling her hair and mumbling to herself in toothy Argentine-accented Spanish, preparing for her role in the con. She'd gone to a salon in Miraflores earlier that day to get a manicure and a pedicure and a fake tan, since this job left no time for sitting by the Pacific until she was sunkissed. She has long, very dark red-brown nails now, like claws.

Nate doesn't like them. He suspects she doesn't like them either, but they were part of the act. He likes the dress. He watches her prepare herself and fights the urge to flat-out stare. She pins her hair momentarily and begins applying eyeshadow, a smoky dramatic grey that would go nicely with her backstory: the modern ingénue from Buenos Aires, the daughter of an export mogul, cocaine-addled, temperamental.

Nate has been nervously looking out the window of the villa they rented. He has been, for some time, pacing back and forth between the window and Hardison's desk as they both very carefully talk Eliot and Parker through a break in. Sophie sweeps on a final coat of mascara, presses her neck and wrists with a tiny bit of perfume, and approaches Nate, holding out her earpiece.

"What?" He says, a microsecond of annoyance, and she makes a face. Then he realizes what she wants: "oh." He brushes aside her curls and eases the device into her right ear. He can't resist touching her earlobe. He holds her diamond pendant earring on the pad of his forefinger for a moment. "These are from Tuscany. Old. I remember them. I'm surprised you've kept the same jewelry so long."

"Yes. Well, they're some of my favorites. Can't believe you remember." Her gaze slides sideways but she doesn't move away from him or turn.

"Be careful tonight."

"I know."

"You going to take that?" He asks, four inches away from her ear, speaking so quietly. He's referring to the subcompact handgun and holster Eliot had left for her on the side table.

"I don't know."

"I think you should."

"Nate, I'm out of practice."

Neither of them moves. Nate's breathing in her perfume. He's got a very bad instinct about the night. Hardison directs Parker through some air vents across the room. Her part of the operation is almost over.

"Just take it, Sophie."

"Nate."

"Please."

Sophie walks away from him and sits back down on the couch, begins fastening her shoes, high heels as always, but she'll carry a big bag tonight, instead of a clutch, with a pair of flats in it, just in case something tells her she might need to run.

She eyes the handgun and the tactical thigh holster laying open next to it. She knows better than to carry that gun in her bag. Only idiots carried guns in bags—hard to reach, slow to pull out, an accidental discharge could go right into your torso…she was pretty effectively trained, just _out of practice_, in the same way that Eliot had a big old gun collection and rarely carried or used any of them, though he did keep them maintained for times such as this.

She picks up the gun, a little Glock 26, flicks down the trigger cover, jams a grip extender into it (her hands aren't quite that small!), checks the mag, racks the slide, and sets it back down. Nate's watching her with equal parts fascination and terror. She straps on the holster, high on her leg, slips the gun in and settles her dress. She clicks over to the mirror in her heels and moves around, checking to see if the gun is printing through the skirt of the dress. It's not.

She wondered what Eliot knew or thought he knew about this trip that he didn't say in so many words. Rarely did he come to work armed. But this time he flew first class under his Air Marshal's ID and packed heat in two places, one for him and one for her. She said nothing. She trusted his instincts. As strange and maladjusted as they all were, she trusted each of their instincts a great deal.

"So, Nate," she says, and opens the case of the recording pin Hardison designed, preparing to stick a watch battery in it and put it on her dress. "_Digame_. Remind me what I have to do. Step by step." They're both a little nervous, evidently.

"You have to record the mark's voice," Nate says, "so we can call up the Caymans from a masked number and empty his bank account tomorrow. Voice verification, account numbers, access codes, all of those we will use. So keep the duress out of his voice. Talk nicely to him. The cadence of politeness is what we're looking for. We need lots of footage. Then Hardison reworks the audio data into a phone call for us. The more footage the better. Parker is...getting out of his house with access codes and the account numbers right now."

"Gotten out," Parker corrects, in all their ears. "On my way back."

"And I didn't even need to break any shins," Eliot mutters, sounding, to be honest, a little disappointed. But he's probably happy to see Parker out safe.

Sophie stretches her fingertips towards the ceiling and takes a deep breath. _I can do this_, she thinks, and murmurs the same aloud in Spanish. _Puedo hacer esto._

***

The mark is currently in the VIP room at a club in San Isidro. Nate drives Sophie there and drops her off before parks behind Hardison's truck a couple of blocks south. When she's getting out of the car, he reaches for her hand, and mouths the words 'good luck' silently since he doesn't want the team to hear because they all think she's never needed luck. She blows him a kiss, just to see his face break open into a smile, and she is in character moments later, strutting past the line right to the door of the club. A bouncer moves toward her as if to check her body or her bag before she goes in.

"Ay, ay, ay!" she gasps, "_No toque!_" flustered, and manages to brush his hands away haughtily, relying on pure momentum. He looks apologetic. She flashes him a little smile in thanks and goes inside, scanning for the mark. He's in an upstairs booth with three other men. She's supposed to go up and try to buy drugs from him, then introduce herself, make friends, be on his arm for the night.

The drugs are no problem. She pays him with 500 sol bills, sits down "for a taste" at the table, then drops her "father's" name, which leads to the offer of a drink, which leads to another hour sitting with these men and the mark. Eliot tells her, at some point, that the men are not actually in the business with their guy, that they're just friends. So he's assuming they are not armed, but he tells her to look for a sidearm printing somewhere anyway. She climbs into one of their laps, playing it to the hilt, a gleaming laughing feminine swirl of dark hair. She doesn't see or feel anything. They laugh and joke and swear and drink, oblivious. She has another couple of drinks. She does a couple of lines.

Sophie hears Nate make an unhappy sound on the coms when she does that final line to counteract her drinks and to convince these guys she's serious. Soon they're leaving the club, going back to the mark's place, where he tries to peel off one strap of her dress with all his guys in the room, the door barely shut. Definitely hostile, definitely not seductive. She's full of adrenaline now. It takes all her concentration to not blow the act.

She realizes maybe it would have been a better idea not to come back to the mark's place at all. She realizes she should have suggested another bar instead.

"_Eh! Ten ciudado_," she warns the mark, and smiles a slippery smile at him. She sits down on his couch, settles her curls behind one ear, looks down for a moment to gather herself, and so is thoroughly unprepared when he reaches for her throat. His boys are laughing. She's shoved back against the couch by the neck. Something about this is predictable. Do they think she is a prostitute who lied about her "father's" name? Maybe they want to rob her for the rest of the cash she's got? No matter.

She puts a heel into the mark's gut, breaking his hold on her, and draws her Glock, all in one motion.

"_¡Mire usted!" _She shouts at him, as if to say, _really? Look at this guy!_ She flicks off the trigger guard, settles the mag. "_Boludo,_ but now you get to ask me to not kill you. Fucking Peruvians, no one touches me like that at home." The mag has ten rounds, which is pretty serious for a subcompact. In the back of her mind Sophie notes Eliot's batman-like knowledge and usage of this fact. The mark's friends stop laughing. One of them looks a bit turned on through all his terror.

"I bet no one touches you at all, you bitch," the mark replies, but he doesn't move. She's aiming solidly at him.

For a quick second Sophie's real mind peeks out from the character and she wonders what they would have done to her, but she shoves that instinct away, and keeps acting.

"Oh, _papi_, don't you wish. But it's just you who gets pushed away," She snaps back at the mark. "_Pobrecito._"

She lets loose a nice stream of insults, half-narrating to the team what is happening, as she struggles to keep her Argentine accent smooth and uniform. It might be the coke or the drinks, but she's on the verge of blowing it, just giving up and speaking English. She backs away from the mark, and demands of Nate in a hissed ventriloquist's _sotto voce: _"So I'm going to shoot this motherfucker before I get out of here, or do I just get out now?"

It's Eliot, surprisingly, who answers her question. "I think you should take out his leg, and then get out of there. We have all the audio we need. I know all about this guy."

"Eliot, what are you talking about? You're telling her this _now_?" Nate fairly yells. Coms crackle. "Sophie. Wait." Nate sees the control leave his hands and he panics.

"Just do it," Eliot says, his tone unchanged by Nate's challenge, "and then _go."_ Sophie thinks that's pretty much a good idea. She trusts Eliot. She trusts that he has a good reason to tell her to do this, to tell her so emphatically. Her blood sings with coke and whiskey and the heart-pounding adrenaline.

Eyes narrowed for a moment, she lowers her aim a touch to compensate for the recoil, and neatly blows out one of the mark's kneecaps, leaving him in a screaming, bleeding heap on the floor. She blows a kiss at his stunned friends, as she swipes her bag from the dining room table and rushes out. In the elevator she puts on her flat shoes and throws her bag over her shoulder and moves through the lobby gripping her hot weapon in a tactical posture.

"Nate, where are you," she says, shaking.

"I'm coming up the street. Come outside right when you see me, and no earlier. Run to the car. Door's unlocked." He's worried someone might be ready to rain a little fire down on her from a window facing the street when she leaves the building. She runs for it when the black SUV pulls up to the curb, and throws herself inside. The doors lock and they're off down the block before she can put her bag down.

"Eliot, what the fuck was that." Nate is immediately and loudly back on the coms, even as they're headed home.

"I had a feeling this would happen, didn't want to upset the job, but I was ready for that asshole, and Sophie was too," Eliot replies. "Just trying to get a little justice in there with our money."

"You can't give orders," Parker mutters. "_Nate _gives orders."

"Nate, forgive me for saying this, but I am the expert when it comes to violence. And Sophie had it under control."

"Well I didn't have it under control! We almost blew the job. He's going to know it was us now—I mean, you might as well consider it blown!" Nate cries, exasperated. "What if he changes the codes tonight!"

"We'll be out of here in twelve hours. And he's _not_ going to change the codes! Sophie, the way you played that, perfection. He'll think it was the drug-addled violence of an addict. He'll think you didn't get along with his ice. It won't connect for him. Not until long after," Eliot says, and Sophie can't help but smirk.

"_Gracias_," she says, and Nate shoots her a withering look.

"Do you _know _this guy?" Nate demands.

"Maybe, yeah," Eliot replies and at that Hardison laughs. He _can _laugh because he's been out of the frying pan behind the screen for this one.

"Our man has called an ambulance," Hardison reports. "That leg is totally fucked up. Sophie, I think you scarred his friends for life."

"Oh, good," she mumbles, in her own voice this time. She leans her head against the passenger side window. The gun is still a bit hot in her hand, pointed perpendicular to the earth between her feet. Fifteen minutes later they are home. Eliot is telling the story of how knows the mark to Hardison and Parker. Parker seems to understand, and Hardison just looks a touch horrified. Eliot says a serious of quick things about felonies and the inadequacies of Peruvian criminal law, just before Nate slams open the door and sweeps into the room.

"Everyone: pack. Now. We're on our way out of here immediately. Eliot. I need to talk to you." His voice is sharp with anger.

"Nate." Eliot says, evenly, because he knows how Nate hates to get one-upped, and doesn't move from the middle of the room.

"_Privately_," Nate snaps.

"Right," Eliot says and still he doesn't move. He's calm. Their eyes meet. "I think you're angry because I put your girl in danger, not because I made the wrong call."

"Jesus _Christ,_ Eliot!" Nate shouts, because of course he's _right_, and there's no way Nate will admit to it with Sophie there looking at him. "Don't do that again." Any further discussion is aborted.

"Right, boss," Eliot drawls, and goes to his room to gather his things. Hardison and Parker promptly follow to their own rooms, getting the hell out of Nate's way.

So he and Sophie are alone for a moment.

"Nate," Sophie says, prying her shoes off, and walks over to him, puts her hand on his shoulder. "I'm fine? Okay? Let's just go. Calm down." He startles her when he reaches toward her and holds her face in his hands, staring intently at her.

"Sure, but you could have easily been outgunned, if his guys had been armed. Eliot was _guessing_. Gambling! With your life. _Unacceptable._"

"Well, I trust Eliot, and I trust you," Sophie replies, and reaches up to cover his hands with her own but before she can he lets go of her abruptly and is across the room in a second on those long legs. She sits down on the couch and holds her head in her hands to steady herself. That was really good coke. She's rolling now. "Nate, I'm sorry."

"No, I am, I should have told you what to do," he replies.

"You don't," Sophie begins, "always—have to tell us all what to do. We are a team, but we are professionals first, you know, and we can take care of ourselves."

"It just was no good watching that guy grab you like that," Nate mumbles, suddenly deflated, shaking his head. "We're in this together."

"Yeah, well," Sophie says, a little smile on her face, "Eliot made sure I was prepared."

"I know." Nate said. He was rolling up blueprints, making himself busy at Hardison's workspace. He pauses and looks closely at her, narrows his eyes, ghost of a smile on his face. "You're rolling right now aren't you?"

"Oh, just a little," Sophie says, sarcastically. Her pupils are huge. She can feel her hands shaking. "It's been a while since I did this…even for work." Nate is actually a little relieved to hear that, and it provokes his compassion even more.

"Well, try to relax, we have to get on a plane," He says. "Small, enclosed space and everything. I'm going to sit with you."

"Okay."

"Where's all your stuff? Let's get your stuff." He's in full caretaker mode, all of a sudden. They get her suitcase from where it sits against the wall and Nate brings her things from the bathroom to it while she gets the rest of her clothes from her room and changes out of the dress. At this point Parker has already finished packing—she _always_ travels lightest out of all of them—and is sitting on the console table by the door watching them. Hardison, half done with getting his stuff, comes over to the computer for a minute to whip up some last minute tickets for them.

"Nate, you're not angry anymore?" Parker asks.

"Well, I am, but I have to take care of Sophie now," he replies, in a tone that is almost fatherly. Sophie feels a blush coming on as Parker fixes her with a stare. "Trying to think about that."

"Quickest we can go is a couple of hours. Layover in Matecaña, in Pereira, but we'll fly chartered, though. We might avoid security. Eliot, gonna need your marshal badge. If we talk fast enough we can use it as a kind of diplomatic clearance."

"Gotcha," Eliot calls back from the other room.

"Perfect. The last thing I want is a drug sniffing dog around Sophie right now during a layover in Colombia," Nate says, quite a weak attempt at a joke. Sophie's zipping up her suitcase and rolling her eyes. She tosses a scarf around her shoulders, jumps a little on the balls of her feet.

"Oooh," she says, "does anyone have any Ambien? I'm gonna hate myself for this in a day…" Now Nate's rolling his eyes. Eliot walks into the room with his suitcase.

"Yeah, I have some, but not for you!" He says, laughing. "At least not until later."

"I'm going to mix the audio data in the air, and then when we land in Colombia, if I can finish it by then, I can tether my cell and we'll call and order the transfer, ok?" Hardison says. "Quickest I can do it."

"Sounds good," Nate affirms. They're okay. They're all okay. Nate fights to put the mental image of Sophie strangled out of his mind. He picks up his suitcase and ushers her out of the room first, fishing the villa keys out of a coat pocket, pressing a free hand to her back as always.

He hopes the turbulence won't be so bad on the way back. Sophie's a little too talkative in the car. Nate patiently holds a conversation with her, secretly loving the attention but pretending to be annoyed at her mania. She leans over, she touches his shoulder. He likes taking care of her when she's a little out of it, since their defenses always come way down.

***

They're in the air, flying through the dark, and Hardison is working furiously at his computer with a fascinated Parker peering over his shoulder. Eliot's asleep, which is rare, so no one is bugging him. And, although it's been a few hours, Sophie is still all shaky so Nate keeps an arm around her and they talk art crime and tell each other things they remember in Europe kind of nervously and Sophie cracks jokes about him and Maggie that normally would put a grumpy look on his face pretty fast. But for now he just lets the words tumble out of her. The turbulence is rare, and he's thankful. They land in Matecaña and make the call sitting on the tarmac, no trouble, and Sophie wants to stretch her legs, so Nate goes with her.

"You know you don't have to babysit me every minute, Nate," she says, teeth gritted, as they stand on the little marked out part of the tarmac far from the terminal where they walk and look up at the navy blue sky. "I'm not a bomb, just a little buzzed."

"I know. Just, ah, don't go far off."

There was little air traffic at this time of night, and in the clear quiet of the air Sophie looked at him. They were both a little breathless, since Matecaña was a little over 1.3 miles above sea level, and the repartee was getting close to the truth tonight.

"You just like having an excuse to be near me."

"Maybe." Nate avoided her gaze studiously. "Can you blame me? Look at yourself."

"You don't need an excuse, you know, Nate. You can just be," Sophie said quickly, in a moment of clarity.

At that they fell silent. Sophie paced and bit her thumbnail. She looked at her feet. Nate didn't say anything. He peered off towards the terminal. He breathed the thinnish air. He considered how his life had taken these turns.

"It's not that simple," he began, but then suddenly Eliot was yelling at them to get back onboard because they'd gotten clearance to leave and Nate, already nervous, took the easy way out. He decided he'd just explain another time. If ever. Mostly he was having trouble thinking of something to say that wouldn't make tweaking-Sophie just yell about his control issues.

By the time they'd gotten back to L.A., Sophie was beginning to come down, and Eliot had given her an Ambien as promised, second best to pot for this situation, he'd said. So Nate made Eliot drive as Sophie slept on his shoulder on the way back from LAX. He took her home with him and more or less sleepwalked her into his bed fully dressed (minus the shoes), after which he spent a conflicted and exhausted night on the couch.

He wondered how long he'd wait for her, in the wee hours. Until the lack of control ceased to terrify him? She was, in addition to being sexy, brilliantly clever, and an amazing liar, completely _unpredictable_ in many ways, which terrified him because it meant that if they were to be together he would no longer have control.

The next morning she was hungover and grumpy and hungry and he made them breakfast and they took the day slowly and split a weekend paper and feigned interest in some movie on TV, and eventually sometime in the afternoon she slunk back home with her suitcase, ready for a nap. They finished off the adventure with a long hug in his doorway that gave him a whirlwind of gut feelings: pleased, sad, lonely. It was Saturday. He wouldn't be back with the team for a day. At some point, a day had become long. His bed smelled faintly like her hair, he noticed, turning in early that night.

***

a/n: i researched that particular gun and how to come down off of coke (neither by experience) pretty thoroughly, but feel free to enlighten me if i'm wrong.

boludo = an argentine slang term for someone with major guts, someone who's arrogant or ballsy.

pereira = a city in the mountains of colombia; matecaña is the airport serving that city and three others, and it really is that high up.

the lima details are accurate. i've been there.

go read pablo neruda if you haven't before. he'll make you fall in love.


End file.
